


A Stubborn Breed

by Irony_Rocks



Category: X Men, X Men: First Class (2011)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-05
Updated: 2012-01-05
Packaged: 2017-10-20 04:28:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/208735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Irony_Rocks/pseuds/Irony_Rocks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This was an argument that they had been having for decades.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Stubborn Breed

* * *

This was an argument that they had been having for decades.

She liked to think of things in terms of  _before_  and  _after_. Before, she had been Raven. After, she was Mystique. The two women were as opposite as night and day, but that was entirely because Eric was the exact opposite of Charles. What could she say? She was a born chameleon, after all; she was used to reflecting back in herself what she saw in others.

She remembered the exact second when  _before_  became the moment of  _after_  for her. Contrary to logic, it actually hadn’t been in that moment on the beach when she’d chosen Eric over Xavier. No, it was a full two days afterwards, when it had been just him, and her, and the hotel bedroom they now shared. Eric had looked distraught, with his head between his hands and his shoulders tight when she ran her palm across them, her touch intimate and blissfully unaware of what was coming her way. 

“His injuries were bad,” he had said quietly, and her throat closed off. She had never seen Eric so devastated. “They were permanent.”

She suddenly felt very small, and very, very scared. “How bad?” 

“He’ll never walk again.” 

 _That_  was the moment when everything changed. 

* * *

_“I’ll tell you something, Charles, we are more alike now than we were when we started.”_

_“Is that so?”_

_“Still trying to make the world safe for our kind. Still trying to find a way to introduce ourselves – definitively.”_

_“Your definition of definitive was always a bit extreme for me, Eric. What is it like these days?”_

_“Let’s just say that I am out to make some radical changes. Now come on, Charles. For old times’ sake, for your sake... don’t get in my way.”_

_“I’m sorry, old friend, but I cannot do that.”_

* * *

When Eric made his opening move against the humans, Charles found out from the TV first, which would surprise most people if they knew. Charles Xavier, the clairvoyant, the mind reader, shocked as the rest of them when Magneto started a public campaign against Homo Sapiens. But shocked was the wrong word; Charles wasn’t shocked. He had been expecting this for years.

“Professor?” a young student asked, dreadfully, “Will they know about us now? Will they know about Mutants?”

“Of course they will,” another student answered, before Charles could. “And they’re gonna hate us now. They’re gonna hunt us down now.”

“They are  _not_ ,” Charles rebutted, firmly but not unkind. Children were prone to jumping to conclusions, but this one had the distasteful element of some reality. “You fear them, just as they fear you. We have to break that cycle if we want the world to accept us.”

On the TV, there was a frozen image of Magneto and Mystique, standing side-by-side.  _Mutant, and proud_  was the message that scrolled across the bottom of the news broadcast, in parentheses, while the reporter continued to detail the attack.  _Mutant, and proud._  Raven had once half-heartedly mocked Charles for that same exact sentiment; now it was the new Mutant Brotherhood slogan. 

For all his gifts, he had never seen things going down this way.

* * *

She was born this way, always with the blue skin. Before the Xavier mansion, the nuns had taken her in, but even they had been scared of her. Blue skin, red hair. Something from the devil’s breed. “Like a raven,” one of the nuns had said, a few days after she was born. She was not born a raven, but it was a better name than some of the other things this freak-of-a-baby could have been called. She took the name without a say, of course.

Charles once told her the etymology. The Old English word for Raven was  _hraefn_ ; in Old Norse it was  _hrafn_. She always thought of it as a dark omen, to be honest.

“Don’t be so sure,” Charles had said, “the raven was the first bird released from the Ark.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “Oh, god. Don’t tell me you’re sprouting religious scripture now.”

“Genesis 8:7, actually, but that’s beside the point. Why is that a problem?”

“You talk too much about evolution to talk about the bible, too. Don’t be a hypocrite, Charles.”

“Reading a book has never made a person a hypocrite, Raven. You should crack open a seam or two sometime, and try it yourself.”

“Why bother? You read enough for the both of us.”

“I read enough for an entire village, but that’s hardly the point.”

“What  _is_  the point?”

“There’s always more than one way to look at things. We should always try to remember that.”

* * *

“Eric.”

“Charles,” he returned, surprised, but then again, not. “It’s been a long time.”

“Too long,” came the answer, his wheelchair rolling, along with a something else, a memory of something whispered,  _you did this,_  and Eric remembered how he’d closed his eyes tightly and felt everything he knew, every ounce of confidence he had built come crashing down around him in a single breath. 

After all this time, their reunion was quiet and unassuming. Eric should have expected that. 

“You look well,” Charles said.

“Better than you expected, you mean, for a global terrorist? That’s what they’re calling me these days, isn’t it?”

“Don’t start, Eric. Can’t we just sit and talk? It doesn’t have to be like this.”

“It does, Charles. Too much has happened. Tell me you didn’t expect us to share some quiet conversation over tea?” 

“A man can’t hope for an old friend’s company? I was hoping we could at least finish that game of chess.”

“I’m sure,” Eric said, rising to fetch his hat. There was a slight smile on his lips, sad, but there. “You would’ve won that game in three moves, and you know it.”

Charles laughed. “All right, then, a new game? You be white, this time.”

“No, Charles.” He needed to leave, quickly. “White suits you better. I’m the black hat, remember?”

Like either of them could ever forget. 

“I know you have something planned,” Charles stopped him, as Eric moved for the door. “Don’t do it. Whatever it is, there is still time to change how this ends.”

Eric turned back, curiously. “How does it end, then?”

“Not well.”

Eric donned on his hat, wishing for his helmet instead. “What would it take, I wonder, for me to turn irredeemable in your eyes?”

Charles glided forward. “A person can always be redeemed.”

But Eric shook his head, and made for the exit. “That’s you in a nutshell, Charles. The forever optimist.”

He left without looking back.

* * *

_“If I could make him understand. If he could just be made to see it the way I do. The way it’s going to be.”_

_“And what is the way it’s going to be, Eric?”_

_“We’re going to change the world, Mystique. With or without him as a witness.”_

* * *

He’d promised never to read her mind, but he’d promised so many things to her. This was just another failure on his part, just like he’d failed to guide her, to see her pain, to see  _her_ , the woman that she’d always tried to hide because he’d asked it of her. Charles knew now, in retrospect, what he hadn’t before.  _Mutant, and proud_. How could he have failed to grasp the depths of his own teachings? 

He’d failed her on multiple accounts. Sad fact, but true. It was a fact that he realized in that precise moment when he’d found out, mere hours after the deed, that she had slept with Eric. It wasn’t, technically, reading her mind – it was more her projecting, Raven’s mind-wide open and screaming. These things happened when heightened emotions were in play, and for all the control he possessed over his gifts, sometimes he was nothing more than a passive – and rather unwilling – recipient to other people’s thoughts.

The afterimage of Eric making love to Raven burned through his mind. He had sat back at that kitchen table, silent and uneasy. Something had churned within him, and he had refused to give it a name. 

It took him years to acknowledge that it had been jealousy.

* * *

Eric loved her skin. The color, the texture, the flavor of it. He loved the way she quivered when he stroked her, between the thighs, how her mouth tasted when he kissed her without restraint. Her body was lithe, and nimble, and so adaptable in so many ways. She shifted her hips at an angle, and he grunted, breathing her name, inhaling her scent, and he buried his face into the cradle of her neck, where he ran his tongue across the ridges of her shoulder. 

She was so much more than a chameleon; she was, truly, a goddess, and it satisfied him to know that he was the one that had helped her realize it. Having her caged, having her hide behind the skin of some normal girl – Eric always hated the idea of that, since the very first moment he’d learned of her talents.

She wound her legs tighter around him, clenching her thighs, and Eric groaned. “Harder,” she insisted, as he hiked her higher across the bed. “Christ, Eric, don’t hold back.  _Harder._ ”

The metal bedpost strained against the wall, creaking and louder with each successive thrust.

* * *

_“To win a war, it takes the will to fight it at all costs, by any means necessary. And for that reason, I will always have the advantage. No matter what, I will always fight for what I believe in.”_

_“And I will always be there, Eric, doing exactly the same. In my own way, of course.”_

* * *

“It’s time,” Eric said. “We need to make the final preparations.”

She wanted to say,  _This is going to be public, and brutal. You know he’ll see this. You know this will change things._  She said nothing, instead.

Eric donned on his helmet. There was no argument; since that day where they parted ways from Charles, a decade ago, there had been no further acts of betrayal, but this day, today, she knew would mark a divergence. 

“Eric…” she breathed.

He sensed her unease, stepping closer. “We can’t hesitate now,” Eric told her, firmly. “When you get the shot, take it. Show no mercy, for they will not show mercy to us.”

“I know, it’s just…” 

They were going to take lives – innocent lives. Charles would not be able to look away from that; it was not in his nature. It was her curse in life, to have loved these two men – these two stubborn, strong, charismatic men. These two men, the polar opposite of each other. When she was younger, she held tight to the hope that one day she could find a way to have both of them in her life again. 

But she made her choice long ago, and there was no turning back now. 

At least, she’d make Magneto proud.

* * *

It was in Brussels that she saw Charles again, three years after the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The sight of him in that wheelchair, sleek and polished, was like a kick to the stomach, an old wound that suddenly flared. He didn’t see her, didn’t even sense her – or perhaps he just wasn’t paying attention. She was wearing the body of a businessman, thirty pounds over, and her skills as a chameleon had strengthened over the years. Still, it hurt, that she could stand so close to him and there was nothing of any recognition in him.

She turned away, and never looked back.

She didn’t realize that his knowing eyes followed her out the door.

* * *

Eric always awoke first, in the mornings. He always watched her out of the corner of his eye as he got dressed, the span of her blue skin stretched out on the bed, crimson hair splayed over a white pillowcase. She was usually a late riser, but not today.

“We should talk to him,” Mystique whispered, quietly, enough to make him pause while tugging on his left boot. “He might still listen. He might—”

“Don’t,” he said, but though it was a warning, there was an undercurrent that felt heavy, like metal, like lead, like it was weighing him down. Magneto, weighed down. “It won’t make a difference.”

“He isn’t the type to hold a grudge,” she argued.

He sighed. “There are some things that can’t be mended.”

She sat up in bed, defiantly. “I don’t believe that.”

But she was still a child, in so many ways, and still thought like one, too. Eric knew better than to share her optimism. It wasn’t an end to their tale, the way it was left between them back in ’62, but he knew better than to ever expect a happy reunion. 

“Eric—”

“Enough,” he warned, tugging on the other boot and lacing up the straps. “You should get ready. We need to leave by noon—”

“Eric,” came another voice, lower, masculine; Eric’s head shot up to find Charles in bed.  _Mystique as Charles_  in bed. It was a relaxed pose – body leaned back, hidden from the waist down beneath the covers, a sexy laziness that had always worked to Charles’ benefit. The sight was enough to catch Eric off-guard; they’d played bedroom games before, but none like this. “We know what we both want back in our lives. Why not just  _try_  for it? Just once.”

He rose from the mattress in agitation. Most everybody assumed that there was some romantic angle to his relationship with Charles. They were wrong, though it wasn’t for a lack of desire. There were signs scattered along the way and Eric had always been a very smart man. Looking back, he knew exactly the nature of their relationship. Probably should have confronted Charles and made more of an effort to make something of it, but their lives had been ruled by other necessities.

Mystique knew all this, not that he’d ever told it to her.

“Charles chose his side, as did we.” He breathed in and out through his nose, jaw clenched, chewing on his aggression, and then said, “Never attempt this form in our bedroom ever again.”

He left without waiting for her response.

* * *

_“As much as I hate to break this up, we’ve lingered too long.”_

_“I assured you that this was a diplomatic meeting, Mystique. There’s no one here to ambush you. I simply wanted a conversation with my oldest friends in the world.”_

_“It’s you and Eric that play games, Charles. Not me. I know this meeting won’t change a thing. I know the both of you too well to think otherwise.”_

_“This same fight, over and over again. It’s been years—”_

_“Decades, but the argument stays the same, and the players. That’s exactly the problem.”_  

* * *

It was a custom now, to be invited to these political meetings, all of this ambition in the same room, ripe and loud, as they tried to wrap their heads around the best way to deal with “the Mutant Problem.” Charles almost found it the most amusing part of his year, sometimes, except his sense of humor had evolved since his days of youth.

“Professor,” a Senator called. “What do you think of the threat of Magneto? Is he really as dangerous as the rumors say? I have trouble imagining it.”

Charles tipped his head up. “The problem is,” he said, voice firm, “he’s far more dangerous than anyone’s imagination. Mine, included.” 

* * *

Two weeks into the new decade, and she and Charles were sitting outside of a coffee shop on the outskirts of Georgetown, sharing tea and a latte. He was nervous; most people wouldn’t see it, but Mystique was not most people. It unnerved her more, though, to see him after all this time, finally face-to-face. Well, in a way. She was using her “normal” human visage in deference to the crowd: blonde hair, blue-eyed, a slim woman in her late twenties, beautiful enough to be a model. She almost wanted to streak blue, let her true form show and the crowds be damned. This meeting was unnerving her. _He_  unnerved her. 

“You’ve barely aged,” he remarked, a smile on his lips.

Mystique couldn’t figure out how, after all this time, he could still make her feel like a teenager vying for his attention. 

She shrugged, indifferently. “Not that one could tell, if I did.” After a pause of studying him, she said, “You look good, Charles.”

He laughed, sitting so unassuming in that damn wheelchair of his. “You mean besides the receding hairline?”

It was a familiar laugh, and for a moment, a brief nanosecond, she remembered years before, when he had been her  _everything_ , even though she would never have admitted it to anyone. It didn’t matter; he must have known. Charles always knew everything.

“I have a message,” she said, to distract from all these… memories. 

“You’re more than just someone’s messenger, Raven.”

She flinched, hard. “It’s Mystique, now.”

“Right,” he allotted, backtracking. His eyes dimmed. “Of course. Mystique.”

It didn’t matter how much they once loved each other, how happy they were once upon a time even though she had spent the better part of the last decade of her life trying to forget him. The idea of hurting Charles… she couldn’t think about it, but she knew harsh reality. 

“We need to talk, all of us," he pleaded. "We need to sit down and talk—”

“He won’t see you.”

“He will, if you ask him of it. Just this once.”

She needed to say what she came here to say, and then leave. “Stay out of our way, Charles.”

“You know I won’t.”

“I’m asking anyway.”

His eyes were far too knowing, and far too pained. For better or worse, for years Charles Xavier had been the voice in her head, telling her right from wrong. For the longest time, Mystique had hated that, but then years passed, and that voice had faded because of abuse and neglect.

Now, there was no voice but hers, and Magneto’s. Things were cleaner that way, simpler. They made sense. 

Charles wasn’t her enemy, but he may as well have been it anyway. There was a war; they were on opposite sides. It was as simple as that.

 _Things are never that simple_ , he thought to her.

She smiled, expecting the invasion, even welcoming it, in a way. “Some things never change.”

But then again, they were living proof that some things do.

“Fine,” she said, eventually. “I’ll ask him, just this once.”

* * *

The room was dark, barely lit, but Charles and Eric sat opposite of each other, both eyes intent on the chessboard in front of them. It had been years since they had played together, years since this game had held their undivided attention. Those years had changed them both, physically as well mentally. But Eric knew, while this would be a fleeting moment that harked back to their yesteryears, he would allow himself to enjoy it while it lasted.

“I’ll tell you something, Charles, we are more alike now than we were when we started.”

“Is that so?” 

“Still trying to make the world safe for our kind. Still trying to find a way to introduce ourselves – definitively.”

“Your definition of definitive was always a bit extreme for me, Eric. What is it like these days?”

“Let’s just say that I am out to make some radical changes. Now come on, Charles. For old times’ sake, for your sake... don’t get in my way.”

“I’m sorry, old friend, but I cannot do that.”

“To win a war, it takes the will to fight it at all costs, by any means necessary. And for that reason, I will always have the advantage. No matter what—” Chess pieces seemed to visually mimic their conversation; Xavier’s white pieces slowly surrounding Magneto’s Black King. “I will always fight for what I believe in.”

“And I will always be there, Eric, doing exactly the same. In my own way, of course.” And with that, Xavier placed his queen gently down, taking away a knight. “Check.”

Just then, the door opened, and Mystique waited. “As much as I hate to break this up, we’ve lingered too long.” 

Charles smiled. “I assured you that this was a diplomatic meeting, Mystique. There’s no one here to ambush you. I simply wanted a conversation with my oldest friends in the world.”

Mystique walked across the room, standing beside the chessboard. “It’s you and Eric that play games, Charles. Not me. I know this meeting won’t change a thing. I know the both of you too well to think otherwise.”

Eric sighed, moving his King out of harm’s way. “This same fight, over and over again. It’s been years—”

“Decades,” she cut in. “But the argument stays the same, and the players. That’s exactly the problem.”

Eric looked up at Mystique. “If I could make him understand. If he could just be made to see it the way I do. The way it’s going to be.”

She smiled – sadly, but one had to be looking closely to see it. “And what is the way it’s going to be, Eric?”

“We’re going to change the world, Mystique.” He paused, and even though he spoke to her, his eyes drew back to Charles with a warning. “With or without him as a witness.”

“I am not afraid of you, Eric,” Charles told him. “I never was.”

“Of course not. You’re still trying to save us from ourselves.”

“And I always will.” Mystique’s smiled dimmed as she watched Magneto and Xavier stare at one another across the table. “I think this is my cue to leave.” Xavier turned and wheeled himself around. “Till the next time, old friends.”

The door closed behind him, leaving behind Magneto, Mystique, and his metal chess set. 

Mystique stared after him. “I can’t believe this meeting actually happened without any confrontation. I was so sure—”

“The next time won’t be amicable conversation over chess. I assure you, the battle will be real. We can’t forget that, not even for a second.”

He moved his Knight into position, and said, very quietly, and very, very painfully, “And mate, Charles.”</i>

* * *

  
Fin.

  



End file.
